UNT IRC Meeting Minutes
March 13, 2007
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS
INFORMATION RESOURCES COUNCIL
March 13, 2007
VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT: PHILIP TURNER, CHAIR, PATRICK PLUSCHT, TIM CHRISTIAN, ELIZABETH HINKLE-TURNER, ROBERT JONES (for JOHN HOOPER), RHONDA ACKER (for SCOTT WINDHAM), JIM CURRY, GUILLERMO OYARCE, STEVEN KING, ERIN MURRELL (for CHRISTY CRUTSINGER), UWE ROSSBACH, CENGIZ CAPAN, MARGARET AMBUEHL, LOU ANN BRADLEY, PAUL HONS (for JUDITH ADKISON), BRUCE HUNTER, ROBERT NIMOCKS, RAMU MUTHIAH, WIL CLARK (for JOHN PRICE)
NON-VOTING MEMBERS PRESENT: JOE ADAMO, CHARLIE ANDREWS, MAURICE LEATHERBURY, PHILIP BACZEWSKI, SUE ELLEN RICHEY (Recording Secretary)
MEMBERS ABSENT: DON GROSE, GINNY ANDERSON, SARA WILSON MCKAY, JON NELSON, RAY BANKS, BOBBY CARTER, ABRAHAM JOHN
GUESTS PRESENT: JIM BYFORD, SCOTT POWERS
The minutes of the February 20, 2007 meeting were approved with a note that in the designation, Daylight Saving Time, there is no "s" on the word Saving.
Philip Baczewski reported for the Distributed Computing Support Management Team that at their March 2 meeting, Tom Anderson and Keith Cullum of Dell, Inc. were in attendance to provide a current overview of Dell's printing products. Also discussed at that meeting were a review of the GAB power outage, Groupwise Daylight Saving Time issues, a Groupwise Instant Messenger bug, Course Management System issues, CBT software availability, and security incident reporting. Additionally, it was requested that DCSMT investigate deployment of MS Office 2007. A working group was appointed, with Uwe Rossbach as its chair, to identify issues involved with rolling out Office 2007, and develop one or more scenarios outlining how a rollout could be accomplished in
a coordinated and efficient way. The next meeting is scheduled for March 16.
Patrick Pluscht presented the proposed charge to the Learning Enhancement Planning Group, which had its first reading at the February meeting, and called for discussion and vote. Discussion followed during which Patrick stated that he hopes to have a decision made on what product to use by July or early August and move forward with implementation as soon as the purchase has been negotiated. The current version of WebCT Vista that is being used is not the latest version, and WebCT is not willing to fix anything in this version. For users who do not move to their later version, support will diminish. Patrick stated that it is hoped that conversion to a new product or later version of Vista be accomplished by December of 2007. In answer to a question from Robert Nimocks, it was stated that the system that replaces WebCT Vista will be a real course management system. Patrick reported that a survey has been sent out to the planning group members asking them to weight the criteria to be used in deciding on a product; and a separate features survey will be sent out to faculty and students to see what features they would like to have in the new product. Robert Nimocks commented that the Health Science Center has not been able to get people interested in the current system. Patrick invited HSC to appoint a representative from their school to serve on the Learning Enhancement Planning Group. Dr. Turner noted that there are 50,000 enrollments on Vista this semester, and also added that they are trying to be very conservative about changing and are waiting until the latest possible time to do so. Following the discussion, the proposed new charge was approved.
Lou Ann Bradley stated that the Communications Planning Group has not met, therefore, she had no report.
Robert Jones reported for the EIS Planning Group that the teams have worked very hard to make the needed changes to the computer system to adapt to the early change to Daylight Saving Time. Projects the EIS group is currently working on are: 1) beginning the implementation of the Cognos performance and planning software that the Budget Office will primarily be using in order to streamline the budgeting process for the university. They anticipate that they will be working with consultants to kick-off that implementation during this budget year so that it will be ready for full use by the next budget year; 2) Learning Solutions upgrade is underway; the first week in April resources will be devoted to that implementation; and 3) CRM project, as it relates to Graduate Admissions is on track to begin at the end of April. In response to a question from Uwe Rossbach about EIS compatibility with IE7, Robert stated that PeopleSoft has certified IE7, and he has been using it to test it and has discovered no issues or problems with the new version. He said he would work on getting an official notification of this out to the campus. Patrick noted that WebCT has not yet certified IE7. Cengiz Capan asked if student advising tracking is included in the CRM project. Robert stated that the initial implementation would be for applicant and prospect tracking in the Admissions office. Cengiz stressed that graduate student advising tracking is a huge need by academic departments and he urged the development of this in EIS.
Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner reported for the Student Computing Planning Group that the Skillsoft CBT courseware has been loaded, and it is believed that it interfaces with PeopleSoft. Tim Christian reported for the Standards & Policy Planning Group that the Office of Internal Audit has made some recommendations for changes to the Computer Use Policy and his group is working on those revisions.
Elizabeth Hinkle-Turner expressed concern over the move to Office 2007 because of questions she will be asked at new student orientation sessions regarding what type of computer and software need to be purchased by parents for their students.
Some questions were raised about the Office 2007 product, and concerns expressed about its feature changes. Elizabeth said she would distribute a list of all the training courses that are available through Skillsoft for Office 2007. There will be training on Sharepoint, a new feature of Office 2007, in October of 2007.
Maurice Leatherbury reported that he and his staff had met with Dell regarding the planned migration from GroupWise to Microsoft Exchange, as well as a change from Novell Directory to Microsoft Active Directory. It is now clear that there is a need to accelerate the plan to tighten up the campus network by setting up the firewall so that the default is to deny everything instead of accepting everything. CITC will be asking the Communications Planning Group to help with establishing a different way of managing the access to UNT’s network from off campus. The Intrusion Detection system will be used and network managers will be asked to identify what protocols they are using, so that plans can be made to allow that kind of use to go through the firewall. Long term, CITC wants to have a dmz (area outside of the firewall) which will allow anybody to put anything up; which will require a lot of extra planning. In addition, they will be putting up vpn to allow access into the campus for those protocols and ports that are known to need protection from outside. Maurice explained that there is a lot yet to be done.
Cengiz Capan expressed his concern over the rising cost of all of the technological improvements that have to be done.
Joe Adamo further explained that there have been recent problems with the firewall going down due to a software bug within the Juniper firewalls. Datacom is working with Juniper, at their highest technical level, to resolve the issues.
Maurice further reported that CITC is testing a CopySense device that supports the blocks of the transmission of copyrighted materials from campus. There will be some changes to the network and it looks like the device could be turned on within the next month. The RIAA is stepping up pressure on college campuses and is sending out a new wave of subpoenas against students who use campus networks to distribute copyrighted materials. There are some policy issues to deal with in regard to enforcement methods. The device will be used primarily in RESNET but could be used across campus later. The device will be able to discern the difference between legal and illegal downloads.
Joe Adamo added that Datacom is running a device that is actively detecting rogue wireless access points and will be sending out notices of shut-down through Housing. Rogue access is considered a security incident. Joe clarified that if a student in a dorm is using a laptop with a MAC airport and is wirelessly accessing the network it is considered rogue access. The computer must be attached to a wall outlet in the dorm room. Wireless access is, however, available in common areas of dorms.
It was noted that there is a new Cell phone Policy in effect, due to a significant amount of cell phone use abuse.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 3:00 pm.